Dean Family - Victoria's Story - Year 4 - 2015

I can’t believe this feels like I am talking about half of my life in only four years. I really am a different person than I was four years prior. It feels like I was reborn that day into something I still don’t fully understand or really want to be. I was overworked and in a stressful environment. I knew I no longer wanted to continue this fast paced life. I knew I needed to be home more. My husband needed me, my kids needed me, I needed me. It's crazy to look back and see all the painful actions you made out of fear, out of pain, or out of anger. To know you should act differently but you don't. It's easy to be angry, it's easy to be filled with this unjustified, misguided, pain and fear. It makes you want to close off the world and surround yourself with the darkness that has become your friend.

I have never been an angry person so these feelings were hard to process. I hated everything around me and everything inside myself. I felt deep, dark, and inconsolable. Then the morning would come. I would get up, cry in the shower, and with regret felt better. No one tells you how much you feel guilty for feeling anything other than heartbreak. It's rough. It still makes me sad.

You can't live there. You can't. No matter how much you want to- Don't. Go outside. Change your environment. Go outside. Just go for a walk. Get sunshine. Go to the water and put your feet in the sand. Get a plant and take care of it. Do anything that is outside yourself and this busy world. Find a routine. It sounds stupid but it will give you a moment, a glimpse of hope. That glimpse can change into a thought. That thought can change into a feeling. You can do it, it's hard, but life is hard. Find something for yourself, something that doesn't cost much, and stick to it. It could be the one thing that helps you wait for tomorrow and tomorrow could be less dark.

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